Libertas Schulze-Boysen


Libertas Schulze-Boysen, born Libertas Viktoria Haas-Heye was a German resistance fighter who was a member of the Berlin based anti-fascist Widerstand|resistance] group that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Gestapo, during the Third Reich.

Early years

Schulze-Boysen spent her childhood at the estate of her grandfather Philip, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld in Liebenberg near Berlin. She was a granddaughter of Prussian diplomat Philip, Prince of Eulenburg through his youngest daughter Viktoria.
After her abitur at a girls' secondary school in Zurich and a stay in the United Kingdom, she was hired by the motion picture company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Berlin branch office as a press officer. She joined the Nazi Party in March 1933. In 1934, she became acquainted with Harro Schulze-Boysen, whom she married on 16 July 1936 in Liebenberg. Early in 1937, she left the Nazi Party.
In the period that followed, she wrote a play with Günther Weisenborn, Die guten Feinde. In 1940, she wrote film reviews for the Essener Zeitung while also gathering pictorial evidence of Nazi war crimes in the Reich Propaganda Ministry. She supported her husband in the quest for like-minded opponents of the Nazi régime.

Arrest and trial

In late October 1941 she was visited by a Soviet military intelligence officer and put him in contact with her husband. The Gestapo discovered their Resistance group in summer 1942 and her husband was arrested on 31 August 1942. Schulze-Boysen warned friends and disposed of their own illegal documents, but was arrested anyway on 8 September 1942. While in prison, she wrote a number of remarkable letters and poems to her mother.
She and her husband were brought before the Reichskriegsgericht, where they were charged. She was charged with "preparation" to commit high treason, helping the enemy and espionage. Her husband was charged with preparation to commit high treason, wartime treason, military sabotage and espionage. The trial ended on 19 December 1942 with death sentences for both her husband and her. Libertas Schulze-Boysen and her husband were executed on 22 December 1942 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.

Honours

In the Berlin borough of Lichtenberg in 1972, a street was named after the Schulze-Boysens.
The full name of her niece, Rosita, Duchess of Marlborough, is Dagmar Rosita Astrid Libertas.
Her grandniece is Sophie, Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein.